Zero
Dark Thirty (directed by Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker) is about the CIA’s manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. The film centers around the sharp CIA agent Maya
(Jessica Chastain) who spearheads the investigation. Zero Dark Thirty is somber, intense, and
well-made but for some reason it left me feeling a bit cold. It doesn't have the energy or raw intensity of The Hurt Locker and I found it harder to connect to the characters. We really only get to know Maya.
One
thing this movie does really well is to keep the narrative grounded firmly in
reality. It does a good job of portraying
how difficult and frustrating the search for Bin Laden was. Though the movie follows a linear narrative,
the search for Bin Laden was certainly circuitous. There was not one eureka moment but a series
of small steps forward with many steps backwards. While many movies shy away from uncertainties
to keep to a clear and clean narrative, this one really embraced them and it
strengthened the movie because it kept the search realistic. Even as we get closer and closer to finding
Bin Laden in the movie, we never get that it’s a sure thing.
There’s
been quite a lot of controversy over various aspects of the torture scenes in
the movie: that they weren't accurate because the CIA didn't use them to find
Bin Laden and that the movie promotes the use of torture to extract
information. The torture scenes in the
movie are intense and difficult to watch but it doesn't seem like the movie is
promoting the use of torture to get information. Ultimately, it is unclear how useful and
reliable the information the characters get from the interrogations are.
There’s
a secondary storyline to the manhunt that doesn't come through as well: the changing
role of the CIA and how that has affected its priorities. We get hints of it from Maya’s bosses but
it’s mostly pushed to the side when the search starts making progress.
In
terms of performances, this movie really belongs to Jessica Chastain. As Maya, you watch her find her voice as the
movie progresses. She starts off as the
newest CIA agent in the Pakistan office who stands quietly in the interrogation
room to the only person in a room full of CIA leaders who has complete
conviction that they have found Osama Bin Laden. While we see Maya find her voice, I wish the
movie had spent more time on how she formed her views. We see her looking conflicted during earlier
interrogations but how her views change on interrogations as time progresses is
not really shown.
Rounding
out the rest of the cast, there is Jason Clarke and Jennifer Ehle as CIA
agents, Kyle Chandler as Maya’s boss, and Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation) as a Navy SEAL. I’m a big fan of Parks and Recreation, but it was a bit distracting to see Pratt in
the movie. Pratt provides some levity
but doesn't seem to quite fit the tone of the rest of the movie.
Zero
Dark Thirty is a somber portrayal of a manhunt.
It is intense, draining, and worth seeing but it's missing something that I can't quite put my finger on.
